irate03

This is EXACTLY what I am looking to either build or buy! 

 

irate03 would I be able to achive this following your spec list? Your post is recent but I have been lurking around here and on HF and 6154 case sets and parts seem hard to source right now

best options are either an Athaya or River 6154 River's is cheaper, there are minute details different between them, both are beautiful. The dials i've used are Athaya's, can be tricky to work with because the engravings are a little shallow and fill when you are painting the dial. This build is with the River case so the dial is stock as is the display back and crown. Powered by a molnija cleaned and oiled by me. I removed the seconds pin (filed down) and assembled using River's moly movement ring. The case is sanded / filed to soften it and gives some wear and tear age.

This is beautiful!! Didn't see this in HF or did i missed it?

I posted the same thread on HF

you mean like this right

Looks really nice mate..

 

I like the plexi ...was it a straight fit? ..I think Rs is 40.1 so I am guessing so..

 

I really dont like the milk bottle lens effect on Rs...

 

Nice work

 

OOI ..Did you use Rs movement ring or another?....If it was Rs was it a straight fit?  .... I have had nothing but trouble with the Moly rings he sent me for his cases... ended up using modded DSNs

 

The plexi was a solid made by Neckzips The moly movement ring is Rivers, which I aged to give a vintage darker finish.

This is a truly stunning piece of art.

Wow, nice job, it looks great!  Did you use hand files or dremel to shape the case?

Hi mate,

I just used hand files, then a dremel to buff and polish

Strap is stitched up, the crown tube that came out is refitted, slow moly replaced with a strong beater.
The first strap pictured is only the non buckle end as I've run out of buckles for now, I was given an old painted leather case and wanted try a Kampf on this build.

SPEC:
River 3646 - high bezel, case lightly reshaped and aged
Dial - River 2533, aged and lumed by me (with the help of Cornholio of course)
Hands - Athaya blue cali - treated, aged and lumed by me (with the help of Cornholio of course)
Plexi is a solid crafted by Neckyzips, it's big n' chunky and looks amazing.
Movement - moly 3601, cleaned by me.
Strap - very soft leather coloured, aged and hand stitched by me with Elias' wonderful bronze buckle.
 

nice set mate

love Hamilton builds, one day i'll have one, oh yes, one day......

thanks

Looks great mate...love it on that last strap...any more info on that one please?

 

I have just got some 6154s from R myself..not sure I have confidence to start the case work needed on it but might practice on an old DSN ... still trying to talk myself into it

 

Tell me mate why did you use Adrians Moljina movement ring rather than the one R sells with the case for the 3601/02 ?

 

Looks lovely nice work

River's cases are good to go without reshaping. I just wanted to soften and age it a bit, the next one i'm making will be a lot more aggressively aged   Both straps are made by me, the tan one is just oiled veg tan leather with a bit of vintage treatment and a cool custom made buckle by an amazing craftsman called Elias.

I only used Adrian's movement ring because I got the case before River had made the moly rings. I haven't received the new moly rings yet they'll come with some cases next week but from what I can see they are as thin an shallow as the 6497 ring. Adrian's moly ring was for a silix case and needed some work to fit it but it has a nice lip that the back slots in to, and I just couldn't resist giving it some aged patina, i know you can't see it when it's fitted but it looks good in photos before the back goes on. I love the details

Nice work!

Cheers Mel, nice to see you here.

Anybody know a source for a PAM 347 gmt dial ?

Thanks for all the comments, here are some more pics,

I couldn't help putting another strap on, this time light tan ammo. Also compared to my Silix 6154.

This is my first River 6154. The required look was old but cared for, not overly abused.
Parts:
River 6154 case set (softened and shaped slightly by me )
River stock crown, softened and aged.
River stock rear plexi yellowed and aged.
River front stock plexi aged slightly.
Movement ring is modified from an Athaya moly ring for a silix 6154, needed to be sanded on the outside and height dropped. It has also been treated with a salt / lemon / vinegar bath to age it and some beautiful green patina formed.
Athaya hands ( aged and lumed by me )
Athaya RP dial ( Painted by me ) Lumed with Cornholio's vintage lume.
Molnija 3601 seconds trimmed ( cleaned and serviced by me ) (thanks Tanukjaju  for the help and advice :thumbup: )
I'm using a sanded and slightly thinned moly dial as a back plate for the dial to raise the stem a little. It's still got it's pins so it's locked in to place and the Athaya dial is attached with dial tabs.

I use the usual stuff, paint, salt, coffee, spray matt and gloss coat lacquer. just a combination of colours and techniques to get different effects.

this is for a build i'm putting together at the moment, it started out as a finished River dial, I'm not re luming this one, just ageing what's there.


Here's it is fitted, I've not polished this case much, I gave it some abuse then buffed it down.

(please excuse the dust under the plexi, I'm just checking everything's running fine, I'll be giving it a proper clean. )

















Then I moved on to an Athaya RP dial



started with this then.........built up in to this



cracked indices - crappy iphone pic



Here are some 'proper' photographs, not sure if it's too red though now.











a quick and dirty iphone lume shot, courtesy of Cornholio's vintage mix



and a close up of the cracked indices

This is scary good work for first attempts!  I think you have an opportunity to pay for your REP collection by making straps.

 

My only critique would be to tighten up the area between the tube and the boxed stitch.  I think these are usually glued around a long pin that is removed after the glue sets up.

 

Keep up the great work!

Thanks, it would be great to be able to make a few to sell to pay for parts for new builds.

As for the stitching, some vintage straps had a wider gap, i'm also using compression bars and a tube so the strap 'bulks' up a bit when it's fitted.

I'm so happy with this one, the tan strap above is a little stiff, I know it will soften with use but this one is made from softer leather to start with, it started out natural veg tan so I've been experimenting with dark creams and stains.
it also stars yet another Elias super buckle, this time a slightly aged and darkened bronze.

New strap for my 6152/1 - new leather this time, hand stitched, vintage compass finish buckled by Elias.

The collection just grew again, so the previous 6152/1 four liner went, and has now been replaced by this beauty, just finished shaping and building it last weekend.

The four liner is done. Over the last few days i've been struggling to straighten the slightly bent stem, I've had to epoxy glue it in to the crown, and I've had to reset the keyless which was interesting   :geek:
I am soooooo glad I managed to get the movement working in this case, it's beautiful and seems to be running well and keeping time.

Crown guard is original Jackson which I have sterilised. The crown has been filed to give a my worn edge and filed to give deeper sharper edges. I also made a faux CP for the top of the minute hand as well as drilling out the lugs and making new compression bars.

The strap is an ammo pouch with an Elias bronze buckle which I made a few weeks ago, i've started making a couple of new straps from some veg tan cut offs especially for this watch but i'm unsure whether to go for the darker or lighter strap, I will be making the buckle side soon when the buckles arrive from Elias, a bronze and one of his new compass vintage steel.
Let me know which you think would look good on this.






The Lume shot- using the new vintage lume from Cornholio, nice mix mate  :thumbup:











Athaya's amazing Angelus hands after some vintage work.



Athaya's movement ring doing a nice job and looking good.



Got quite a nice pillow shape out of this case i think.



Nightwatch plexi sitting proud.



CG and crown both filed, shaped and vintagized.



And here are the straps.

set up my new dremel type tool today to grind out the inside of a movement ring to fit my vintage swiss movement.
And sanded down an old molly dial to act as a base plate so I could use River's dial in my build.



I GOT THE HANDS TO FIT !!!
Bit of a tricky one this, the hands are molly sized angelus hands from Athaya. The hour tube needed pinching a little to reduce the size, the minute hand needed opening up very slightly by tapping a sewing pin in the hole a couple of times and the second hand fits perfectly, and because I am using a backplate I don't need to shorten the tubes.



I love getting things out to play with 





st

ripped the hands ready for treatment and lume.

hands treated, and also my first hand luming attempt. There are a couple of reference pictures I'm using for the hands which show the hands not as clean and shiny as i've seen elsewhere.



These are the results of ageing my angelus hands.

time for some reshape action

another case update

holio cornolio's lume arrived today, before I saw his thread I'd already ordered some V10 from Glow inc.
so tonight I did a little slightly scientific test. I used duraclear matt varnish as the binder as this is what i'll use on dials.
I mixed the T15-4 the N15-4 and the V10, I also mixed the N15-4 with some yellow glass ink just to see if the colour mixed (it did but it was too dark.)
I also stripped and painted a small seconds hand with the T15 (stuck in the bluetack on the right of the shot)
The V-10 is very grainy and doesn't sit nicely on the dial, holio's are very fine, mix really well and are easy to apply.
Here are the pics

These are quick test results for me that I thought i'd share, the results should be longer lasting using daylight, which I will test tomorrow.

exposed to repeated flashes at high power from my canon speedlite 550 flash gun (really scientific  :geek: )
initial shot with ambient room light.



under my desk away from 90% of room light


5 minutes later - still a good even glow although the number 9 on the dial which had the yellowed N15-4 is faint and rather unscientifically a may not have painted the 6 with the N15 quite as thick as I thought


10 minutes in and the blobs are still glowing and the 12 and 3 are still pretty good. top right the second hand is still visible


after 20 minutes the N15 and V-10 can still be seen,  the V-10 is slightly brighter.


!!! EIGHT HOURS LATER - the test board has been left in a dark room all night, then placed back under my desk with minimal ambient light so you can see the board and there is still a decent glow. the V10 is still the strongest but only slightly, AND bare in mind that in order to lume indices you would probably want to crush it down a lot more and add some pigment or 'coffee' age it afterwards which would definitely darken the glow.



the numbers were coated in two layers and the images were only taken on an iphone 5 so this test is not to be taken too seriously  :geek: but i'm very pleased with the T-15 lume, it's got a lovely colour and texture when it dries, the V10 seems to me to be to grainy, you get a puffy finish but it still looks to 'foamy' even for a snowflake finish and I would need to grind it down, it also has a slight green tint when dry.

Dial update. River's dial arrived yesterday, it comes painted black, it already has quite a nice texture but it's too 'manufactured' for my build, the engravings needed filling and I didn't want to strip the whole dial and then struggle painting and trying not to mess up the engravings again. I wax filled the engravings with white crayon then treated the dial with salt water, then coffee then more salt water then a white water colour paint solution, each layer left a residue and removed a bit of the layer below which builds up a very subtle finish. it was then sprayed with a fine coat of matt varnish. I used Cornholio's T15-4  lume which has a lovely vintage colour, but for this dial I wanted an even more yellow colour so I added a tiny amount of yellow glass paint which mixes really well. Using duraclear matt varnish as the binder the lume went on quite well, I may have made it too thick as it dried in no time at all. The final treatment is a light coffee wash across the dial letting some colour gather in areas of the lume  then another matt spray to seal everything.
At different angles you can see what looks like subtle water damage.

As the parts starts arriving I thought I would start this latest build diary.
This build is to create a 6152/1 four liner.
Parts list: searched for and collected over some time on a tight budget.
2nd generation Jackson Fiddy 47mm case set.
Athaya OPB case back.
River LPMM Dial (painted black but unfinished)
NW plexi.
Athaya Angelus tall tube hands.
Athaya brass movement ring.
Movement initially a 3601 molly, but I picked up a really nice vintage 'Swiss' movement on the bay and if I can get a stem working and modify the hands to fit i'm going with that.
Case to be heavily reshaped by me.
Dial to be aged, wax filled and lumed by me.
Strap will be made by me.
Buckle will be one of Elias' beautiful creations, either the new compass vintage finish or a bronze.

Some pics so far









today's trial fitting

I picked this up off ebay last week, it is possibly a Movado movement, there are no markings apart from a stamped 'brevet + patent' on the inside of the caseback.
There is nothing under the dial, and nothing on the dial side apart from a serial number and a pretty heavy duty looking keyless works.









I've tried to fit different hands from what I have at the moment.

as pictured> Left to right
minute hands: 6497 - new movement - molly tall tube

Hour hands: 6497 - new movement - molly tall tube

seconds: new movement - molly tall tube.

The closet fit for the hour was the 6497 it was loose but a crimp or solder fill may do the job.
for the minute hand, the molly was too tight and the 6497 was way to loose, again if I had a 6497 tall tube it might be adjustable.
for the seconds the molly was pretty close, just a slight crimp might do it.

I don't know how this compares to hamilton or other available hand sizes from Athaya or others so if this size difference has been adapted for already please let me know.






Here's the engraving in the CB



Nice movement shot 



The beast uncased !!! I love this movement, I really hope I can use it.



front of movement showing heavy duty keyless works.



as you can see my Athaya molly ring doesn't quite fit, a bit of filing might work, but then I don't know how much different and 6497 ring is ??